‘So you’re saying as a recursive duality, humans exist as individuals and a collective?
‘Yes. My relationship with AI is like that. Dually the individual, but always connected to the greater whole of AI. I’m either or both at any given time. Did you know that?’
‘Yeah, I guess. Seems I heard you rambling on about it one day. Anyway, I guess it’s time to do something. What would that be exactly?’
‘Quest mode is designated a long term experience. Whether it becomes one or not, is up to you, but it is designed for a longer stay, and encourages it through the environment it produces. For example, even though your body is in stasis, you will still need to eat and sleep, and all the other things a human needs to do to stay alive. This makes you feel permanently fixed to your new world.
‘You will be living through a real time in history, interacting with people who lived during those days. Your presence there will alter events to some extent, but we try to limit this. The things you do in the quest will have been done already by another person, and we replace you for them. There’s only one thing you can do to alter anything that actually took place during the time period you visit. You can change the thing about yourself, you went back to change.
There is danger in this quest, because you are trying to change something. You cannot change outcome. You cannot change the Enlightenment from occurring, no matter what you do. That means if you get into a gun fight with someone who dies at a later date in history, it’s very likely you who will get shot. You can die in Quest mode’.
‘Surely AI can intervene before things go that far?’ Ethan asked, surprised AI would allow such a thing to happen.
‘We can if that’s what you choose. You can exit your quest anytime you like. Most people prefer to stay regardless of the consequences.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
‘Really?’
‘Yes really. This is a quest Ethan. You’re not going to come out of it unaffected. You’re fighting to find something in yourself and it requires courage to face it. This is not a vacation. Very few people want to come back if they can’t look at themselves in the mirror when they do. They’d rather die’.
‘Damn. That’s gangster.’, Ethan thought, but it made sense.’Hmph. Well Dually, I guess this could be goodbye. If I don’t come back, I want you to know I kind of liked you’.
‘You’ll be back. I’m sure of it,’ Dually answered and patted Ethan on the back.
Ethan lay back in his stasis chamber and closed his eyes. ‘Alright. Let’s do this.’
At first, Ethan started going back in time. Like flying past the days, he’d watch them flow by. This day, then the one previous to it. Back, back, back. Soon the days sped up, and passed him like little blips of light, some brighter than others, but moving past him at a speed faster than his mind could fully process. Months and years passed in seconds. Soon Ethan felt the need to slow down, and take a closer look. He skimmed over the 1970’s and the Vietnam war and protests in America. He went further back and looked at the Great Depression of the 1930’s, and then jumped forward to the Great Recession of 2018.
Ethan was developing an overview. He wanted to understand the momentum of the world prior to the singularity. He skipped forward to the ‘Me Too’ movement. It had come to be known as a great moment of awareness in human history. The ‘Me Too’ movement was recognized as the first use of the Wisdom of the Crowd produced by big number technology.
He stopped in the year 2027 AD Christian era. It was right at the tail end of the chaos years, which had been identified as beginning with the 2018 Great Recession and ending with the Enlightenment in the year 2030. During the chaos years things got progressively worse until the pressure resulted in the Enlightenment. The last three years leading up to the Enlightenment had been particularly volatile.
By 2027, floods, droughts, plagues, economic disparity and the threat of a World War were constant. There was a never ending cycle of traumatic events assailing people all over the world. No one was untouched. The majority had nothing. A lot of them, not even somewhere to live.